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After some bad decisions by parts of the Villa faithful at Wembley – Villa fans have shown that good always prevails.
Words by Alan Wilson | @VILLAlan54
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For the most part, Aston Villa’s travelling army have proven yet again how important their tremendous support is to the team. Their 36,000-strong following at Wembley proved to be a huge inspiration to the team as they roared their side back into the promised land.
However, some fans have been heavily criticised by the Metropolitan Police for their behaviour pre-Kick-Off, in the area known to fans as ‘The Green’.
On the corner of Wembley Hill Road and Dagmar Avenue, there is a large grassed area which sits in front of a row of houses – ideal for giving your dog a quick run before breakfast. However it’s close proximity to Wembley Stadium also makes it the perfect venue for fans attending a match to meet up and get into the spirit before a game.
Villa fans did precisely that, high-jinks fuelled by copious amounts of alcohol. The Metropolitan Police were there in large numbers, as by 13:00 they were struggling to contain around 2,500 fans – who were somewhat ominously letting off flares – and by 13:15 it began to look like a challenge for the Police to keep the party contained.
What followed was a disappointing incident for the vast majority of Aston Villa fans. Bottles began to rain onto a tiered bus – damaging the property of Birmingham based company ‘The Green Bus Company’ – and flying over the vehicle towards other Aston Villa fans.
One fan was hit on the head with a bottle that floored him, because of the stupidity of a fellow fan. Hopefully he was not seriously injured.
There is no excuse for this behaviour, and it has been condemned widely on social media.
Well known Aston Villa fan David Jordan, who goes by the Twitter handle @yorkshireavfc wasted no time in trying to repair the poor image left behind by a handful of fans – waiting only until this morning to get into contact with the company who owned the bus to find out how much repairs would cost and how much a refund for those travelling upon it would too.
The damage caused reached around £20,000 in repairs, and the fans would require around £2,000 to be reimbursed for their journey. At this point, 14% of the required money has been raised by 287 supporters, and the JustGiving page set up by David to help the coach operators and fans has hit £3,581 as we speak.
You can donate at the Tweet/Link below:
